Examine yourselves

When I was a child and growing, perhaps others might also agree that after being reprimanded or corporally punished (this is not an unusual practice in Korean tradition) by my parents for doing something mischievous and wrong, they always told me to reflect on my actions and mull over what I ought to have done.

I obeyed my parents, though not always reflecting on what I ought to have done and what I should do next time once a similar situation comes up, to avoid making the same mistake once again. Later years when I was a bit older, even when my parents no longer told me to, I still reflected and mulled over my acts and words, whenever I knew I had done wrong.

Now that I am already in college, surely the precious seed of self-reflection cultivated by my parents has born much fruit and has since developed into a habit. Ever since then, I never dropped it, and so since I seem to know the benefit of self-examination, perhaps I can speak on a matter which seems to be disregarded.

Nowadays, hardly do I see parents or teachers exhorting their child to engage in self-reflection; the consequence is, whenever children or teenagers are reprimanded or criticized for their obvious and outright misconduct by any higher authority, children pout their mouths and become sulky, just feeling bad and angry for being reprimanded. The teenagers, taking up after what is popular, say “haters gonna’ hate” and call the name of the person reprimanding. The ears to take in the teachings that may benefit them, and a humble heart with which to accept and reflect on their actions, have been closed.

Such is the unfortunate case of emotional immaturity: an immediate and stubborn denial to hear the unpleasantness and acute words of admonishment because they are merely unpleasant, and thereby lacking sense to reflect those words which could grant copious amounts of wisdom and knowledge.

But admitting that times and values have drastically changed, self-reflection may have become an ancient activity. In the 21st century where the advancement of information technology and the remarkable expansion of alternatives in entertainment have bombarded us with multitudes of activities both within and outside internet, demanding our attention and focus on these, sitting down in a quiet place like in one of the chapels in the University or taking stroll at night or early morning around the campus alone seem to be tedious and boring experiences, compared to playing League of Legends or listening to Maroon 5 loudly while checking one’s Facebook status.

Even without doing a simple cost-benefit analysis, the cost of sacrificing some minutes of Facebook or an hour of League of Legend proves to be greater than the benefit of doing so – checking one’s FB status saying where one ate for lunch instantly fades away, but examining himself or herself lasts a lifetime, and more. We might as well be wise here.

Once the famous Greek philosophers, Socrates, who chose death over retracting his philosophy and who said the famous words “know thyself”, said that “the unexamined life is not worth living”, believing that what separates human from animals is our possession of rationality which enables us to examine ourselves. Unless we use this gift to think and reflect, not so much makes us different from animals.

We can learn from our experiences only if we try to examine and reflect our acts and avoid committing the same mistake again, in the same way we were always taught in mathematics class to review our wrong answers so as to see and correct our mistakes in our computations, lest we commit those mistakes again.

We are already at the last month of year 2013, and we are expecting another one soon. Before this year ends and before starting to think excitedly about New Year resolutions and goals for the next year, perhaps reflecting over the year and owning a humble heart to accept the faults does not seem to be a bad choice. Remembering the kind words and actions of other people to each of us and apologizing to those whom we may have wronged is also possible once we examine ourselves.

Many of us easily remember the bitter and sad events that brought tears and hope that next year will be a kind one. But we should keep in mind that whatever made us cry and be bitter or jump in jubilation this year is the consequence of our choice, which may have been an unexamined choice.

We cannot prevent ourselves from making choices because we are cornered every moment to make choices. But making foolish and indiscreet choices can be prevented. The quality of choice can be improved. Instead of trying to forget our foolish and reprehensible deeds, we should start confronting and reflecting on them – by doing so, we start to learn.